The Salad Days of Sam Kass

Profiles in Crustage: Chicago insider Lynn Sweet slices & dices Kass's early years
It was a big media week for the White House Kitchen, with the announcement that First Lady Michelle Obama and Executive Chef Critsteta Comerford will appear on Iron Chef America--as the only White House pair to ever appear on a reality show in the history of the White House...America...the universe. But it was an especially big media week for assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass. On Tuesday night, Kass appeared on NBC's competition weight loss show The Biggest Loser, and on Wednesday, after a major profile of him appeared in the New York Times--front page on the Style section--Kass was a top trending topic on Google, and a huge item of interest across the internet mediasphere, including on outlets that had never previously paid him much notice. This was due in equal parts to his White House food initatives and to his looks. Kass was being called "a culinary Adonis," among other adulatory things; over at Jezebel, a big site, there was a piece called Throwdown: White House Food Sexiness Challenge. There were also mad searches all week on the internet for the recipe for the salad that Kass made with the Biggest Losers; in an interesting move, the White house didn't post it on their own site, but people were very interested. Salad searches, combined with a desire for Kass info in general, led to an even bigger readership for this blog than usual. Ob Fo has a global readership on a daily basis, but it was definitely spiking this week. Everyone, it seems, wants to know more about Kass, whether it's what he's cooking, or whom he's cooking with. (Above: Obviously, Kass. Smaller photo is Kass at the Fall Garden Harvest two weeks ago, which kicked off the Kass-is-a-hottie meme on the internet)


Lynn Sweet, Obama expert
And there are even more details coming out now, in a move at further Kass transparency, and making him more relatable. In a story in the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama expert Lynn Sweet highlights bits of Kass's bio that have never before been on the public record. Sweet is the Washington Bureau Chief for the Sun-Times, and has been tracking all things Barack Obama since early in Election Season--she went off general political coverage in 2007, in order to focus exclusively on Obama. She now writes The Daily Flotus about First Lady Michelle Obama, in addition to her presidential coverage. Sweet holds an interesting place in Obama foodie history: It was her question about Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Cambridge arrest during President Obama's health care speech that ultimately led to the Beer Summit at the White House in July. And because of her long residency in Chicago, Sweet is far more aware of the hometown connections and angles that are going on in the Obama White House. She accurately notes that it's not Kass's cooking that has drawn so much attention to him, but that it's "his work on the White House kitchen garden and nutrition programs, signature projects of first lady Michelle Obama, that has vaulted him from the food section to the news pages." And, er, the Adonis factor, which has brought Kass--and Mrs. Obama's food agenda--a whole new audience.
In her new piece, Sweet writes about some interesting chats with Kass, which fill in details that weren't in the Times piece--or previously, part of Kass's official bio, and which highlight long-standing relationships Kass has from his Chicago school days. Sweet is also the first writer to publicly identify the until-now-unnamed "Michelin starred restaurant" where Kass worked when he was traveling around Europe post-college, something that's always mentioned in Kass's bio, but with no details. (Photos: Large photo is Kass now, cooking at a White House event while Mrs. Obama, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and executive chef Cris Comerford look on)

Some highlights from the Sweet story:

*That "Michelin starred" restaurant: In 2003 and 2004, Kass cooked under chef Christian Domschitz at the Mörwald im Ambassador in Vienna, Austria, a restaurant described in a Frommer's review as "one of the best and most stylish in Vienna."

Kass attended University of Chicago, and graduated with a degree in history, and he tells Sweet:

"One summer while I was at the U. of C., I worked at a restaurant in Chicago, 312 Chicago, and that kind of started me getting interested in food. And my last semester at U. of C., when I was getting my history degree, was spent in Vienna, and while I was over there finishing up school, I was taken in by a restaurant over there and that is where I ended up staying doing my training." --That's Morwald im Ambassador Kass is talking about.

*Avec: It's been noted on the record since January that Kass cooked at Chicago restaurant Avec before joining the Obamas as their private chef, but the info about cooking at 312 is new for the public record. Avec's chef Koren Grieveson was recently a guest chef at the White House.

*Sweet notes that Kass was a baseball star in high school, and wanted to play professional ball. This might explain why Ryan Howard, the Philadelphia Phillies' star slugger, was in the very first video made about the White House Kitchen Garden. Sweet doesn't mention this video, though, interestingly.

*The Chicago-White House connections from Kass's school days: Sweet parses these expertly. As a child, the now-29-year old Kass attended the University of Chicago Lab School, the same school the Obama daughters attended before moving to Washington...but it's a lot more complicated than that. Sweet writes:

He [Kass] is part of a University of Chicago network that takes in the Obamas and many of their close friends and associates -- some, like Kass, who ended up in Washington. Kass attended the U. of C. Lab School for high school and some of his elementary years. His father, Robert, a fifth-grade teacher at Lab, taught Malia Obama last year. His mother, Valentine, who lives in Alexandria, Va., is a science educator at the National Science Foundation who, while at the Museum of Science and Industry, was the director of Omnimax productions and programs. White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett knows Robert Kass from her days when she served on the Lab School board. Susan Sher, Mrs. Obama's chief of staff, is a past chairwoman of that board. Karen Duncan, the wife of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is a former Lab School athletic director who is now working with Kass on encouraging schools to serve healthy school lunches.

Kass and Mrs. Duncan have been visiting DC-local schools as part of Team Good Lunch, which is working to identify best-practice school lunch programs. In the Times piece, and in Sweet's piece, it's noted that Kass has no formal culinary school training, and an interesting note on that is how much time he's spent since arriving at the White House encouraging culinary students to achieve. Culinary students have been invited into the White House on a regular basis as volunteers in the kitchen and garden. Kass has also done things like speak at the graduation ceremony for DC Central Kitchen's training program, which trains at-risk individuals in the culinary arts. He's also done things like send a video message to high school students who were competing in a recent culinary competition sponsored by Healthy Schools Campaign, which is a high-profile advocate for better school lunches (the video, below). It's all more pieces of the Kass advocacy pie. It should also be noted that Kass's lack of formal training has no impact on his ability to handle either policy or cooking; many professional chefs never attended culinary school. And he's certainly more than qualified in the policy arena.

*Ob Fo was at the May Healthy Schools Campaign event in DC that's in this video; read the post about it here. The video:


*Photos by Obama Foodorama